Dreams or Delusions

I wish I knew sometimes the difference between my own thoughts, and those the Lord places in my head.

Sometimes it's easy. If it's a sin...it came from me. If it's a commandment, it came from God. But all the inbetweens...those I'm not always sure of.

I have always been a people person. I was the kid who loved being in the church nursery and didn't want to leave. I was the child who did my homework in whatever room my parents were in and moved if they moved, leaving the desk in my room upstairs to collect dust and cobwebs. Once I got to highschool I was the one to invite my friends to the Christian skate nights and to Bible quiz meets, and they all piled into my parent's mini-van, often ending up in my bedroom for a girls' sleepover.

I was never what you might call popular. But I was accepted by almost everyone, and fit in in an unobtrusive manor. I always had a few people to hang out with.

Until now.

Even when we got married and moved up here the first time, we didn't really make any "real" friends. But in Edinboro, we had two other couples, one with a young daughter, who we really were close to. But moving back here for Pumpkin's birth, and once again no "real" friends.

By "real" I mean someone who doesn't just come when you invite them, but who invites you. Someone who doesn't wait for you to call them, but they call you just as often. Someone who might "save a seat" for you. Looks forward to your company and wouldn't consider a party without inviting you.

And we don't have that...either one of us. Oh, we have friends. We have people we like talking to, and for that matter whom we'd love to BE "real" friends. But they all have a habit of not calling back, or always saying they'll call, and not.

And I just can't figure out what it is. I don't buy the "they have kids and they're busy theory." Because so do we and I'd do anything to have a "real" friendship. More than once I inconvenience myself and Pumpkin to meet two other Mom friends who had two or more kids. And then when I had Rugger I hoped that they'd at least come my way SOME of the time. But they didn't even come to see me at all. The time I needed them the most...after all the hours I spent at their homes...past supper times, past bed times, through nap and lunch times. With a child who was shy or even frightened sometimes. After all that they didn't even come by once when I was alone in a new home with a new baby and my husband away at his new job. Not once.

And I wonder if it's us, then. And I wish I knew. Because I believe I was meant to be a people person, as was Boom.

We were class clowns, people drawn to both of us. People love hearing our stories, our tales, our exaggerations and bluntness. And, our down-to-earth-ness. We understand human-ness and we don't run away from it.

As a couple, we understand burping and farting and sweat aren't always romantic, but their part of being intimate in the most basic sense of letting one another be ourselves. We don't run from all things natural...we let it be. And we are connected in ways some couples would barely even understand, because this allows all our other forms of communication to open up more freely as well.

And it works with other people, too. I'm very good at dropping all pretense and letting you see the nitty-gritty. I'll tell you my worst bad habit so you don't feel so bad about yours. I'll tell you about my daily struggles so you don't feel you are not normal with yours. And I allow you to live a little bit freer because of it. THIS is what makes me a good people person.

And I've often wondered what God wanted me to do with this gift. I didn't even know it had a name until I did a workshop at a previous church, but I found out it's called "hospitality." And once I knew what that meant, I understood that I fit it perfectly. But now what to do with it?

I have often dreamed of having lots of people over to our house...not for showing the house off, because, really, there's nothing to show, but for conversation, company. I don't have room, and it's not always clean, but I don't mind. I'd let you in anyway.

I've had dreams of opening a camp for kids...I've always wanted to impact people's life in some way. Impart to them the joy I know of letting yourself be human. That we all make mistakes, it's okay. But God loves us anyway and we can still live for Him.

And my most recent dream is to maybe start a women's group with my clay. How, I don't know. Whom? Whoever would come, though that's my fear...that no one would come. But my dream is that we could be united like women of old...conversing and sharing and uniting as only women can. In other cultures women work together daily, sharing in the tasks of homemaking and childrearing. I want to be like that. I was MADE to live like that. But I'm stuck here in America where most women can't even be in a club or group together because we all have our defenses up and we get hurt so quickly. I know...I'm one of them.

But that's my dream...or my delusion, I don't really know. But think of it...women, of all ages and walks of life, together, hands dirty and hearts hungry for companionship. As our hands work out our feeling in the clay, we can open our hearts with our words. And go home happy and with a piece of art from our own soul.

And I even thought about the victims from Katrina. I wondered if there's anyway I can offer my home to a woman out there. I don't have much. I could offer money, but that's so impersonal. But I have a room. I have a futon. I have blankets and some food. And I have an ear. And maybe in the process, I could let go of my petty worries because hers are so much greater. And maybe my life can distract her from her own losses, and she can get on her own feet again.

But I don't know. This would obviously take prayer and wisdom. And part of me wonders if it's just a delusion, or is it a planted dream?